


The Worst Whispers Come at Night

by thealphagate_archivist



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Drama, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-16
Updated: 2006-03-16
Packaged: 2019-02-01 20:26:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12712338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealphagate_archivist/pseuds/thealphagate_archivist
Summary: Daniel tries to help Sam deal with Jack's death.





	The Worst Whispers Come at Night

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the archivists: this story was originally archived at [The Alpha Gate](https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Alpha_Gate), a Stargate SG-1 archive, which began migration to the AO3 in 2017 when its hosting software, eFiction, was no longer receiving support. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are this creator and it hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Alpha Gate collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/thealphagate).

I thought the worst night of my life was a week after Jack died. Sam came to me and told me she was leaving the SGC, that it hurt too much to stay. I asked her if it hurt less to leave, and she said no, but she didn't know what else to do. We spent all night talking and not talking and all the stuff in between. She cried and I cried and we both cried together. I asked her what she would do if she left. She said she didn't know. I asked her what she would do if she stayed. She said she didn't know. I asked her what she wanted. She said she wanted to be away from here, as far away as she could get. I asked her what else she wanted. She said she wanted to stay as close to the Stargate as possible. She was confused and hurt and tired. She was listless and restless, unable to stop moving but desperate to find a place to sit down. She kept looking out the window, waiting for dawn I think. Everything will look brighter in the morning. Bullshit. Nothing looked better in the morning. Except I asked her to move in and she said yes. I think it was the only compromise her mind would allow her. Leave and stay at once.

Then I thought the worst night of my life was the night she moved in. I listened to her pace in her room for hours. She didn't even try to go to sleep, didn't even lie down. I wanted to go to her but her door was locked and she ignored my calls, pleas, and threats to open the door. I spent the entire night sitting with my back against the wall in hopes she would come to her senses. She never did. In the morning she opened the door, took a shower, had some coffee and went to work. When I asked her about it she pretended not to know what I was talking about, but the next night she didn't even go to her room, she followed me to my bed and slipped in as if she belonged there, as if she had always been there. And damn it, that's what it felt like.

Then I thought the worst night of my life was the night when I woke up and she was kneeling on the bed clawing at the sheets like she was trying to dig her way into the mattress, or dig something or someone out. When I grabbed her to try to get to her to stop, to wake up, she let out a scream that was a cross between a wounded animal and a madman set loose on his demons. I spent the rest of the night holding her, rocking her, whispering reassurances in her ear, kissing the top of her head. She fell asleep in my arms, still clinging to me like I was her lifeline. When I asked her about it the next morning, she said she didn't remember what she dreamt about.

Then I thought the worst night of my life was the night when I woke up and she was curled in a fetal position, flinching and whimpering. I woke her up prepared to comfort her, to hold her, to rock her, to whisper reassurances in her ear, to kiss the top of head, to have her fall asleep in my arms still clinging to me like a lifeline. But she jerked away from me the minute she realized who I was. She spent the rest of the night sitting on the chair that I had brought in from the living room because there had been no place to put it. She sat there on that old overstuffed tacky chair and looked at me like I had betrayed her, and I spent the rest of the night leaning up against the headboard trying get her to talk. She kept looking at the window, waiting for dawn I think. Everything will look brighter in the morning. Bullshit.

But no. The worst night of my life was the one when she didn't come to bed at all. When she said she was going to stay up a few minutes longer and ended up sleeping on the couch. I don't know what happened that night, and I think that that's probably why it was the worst. I keep thinking that maybe if I had been there to wake her from the nightmare, to tell her that she wasn't alone . . . If I was there to hold her, to rock her, to whisper reassurances in her ear, to kiss the top of her head, or just sit there and try to get her to talk, that she wouldn't have managed to build the walls so high.

That was the worst night of my life because I wasn't there and I didn't know what happened. But that night she stopped talking to me. Not like she had been the greatest of conversationalists before, but after that night she wouldn't talk to me. Not unless I asked her a direct question, and even then it was usually answered with a nod, a shrug, a shake, or a monosyllable.

So now I stand here in the hall next to the bathroom; she wants in, I want out. It's one of those comical situations you find yourself in sometimes. You move to your left, the guy moves to his right, and then again, until one of you doesn't move and you can move forward. But not here, not now. She moves to her left, I move to my right, and again. I mirror her actions, not letting her pass. I think maybe if I frustrate her enough she'll say something to me more than 'sure' or 'no' or any of the other single word single movement answers she's been using.

“Daniel,” she says in resigned annoyance. If I continue this she'll just give up, walk away until I move and then she'll come back. “Daniel.” She says again softly this time pleading with me.

“Sam.” I say, not a little cruelly, totally unfair I know but I can't help myself. She lowers her head in surrender and makes to move away. I sigh, my resolve crumbling. “Sam,” I call. She turns back to me and I move, allowing her into the bathroom.

Next time. I tell myself. Next time. Next time I'll push her enough for her to push back. Push enough for her to have to look over the walls she's built around herself. Or push her hard enough for her to feel uncomfortable enough to leave, to run away from me and live alone within her walls, away from anyone that can hurt her. Next time.

* * *

I thought I hurt after Jack died. I thought mourning for him was the lowest point of my life. I loved him. I just didn't love him enough. My love for him was immature, just a combination of the remains of a teenage crush that I never had and my natural need to rebel against authority, another remembrance of my adolescence. I loved him, and he loved me. I liked knowing that. It was a nice feeling to have, knowing that someone loves you. His love for me wasn't immature, it just wasn't evolved. His love for me was the combination of his ego -- I was his second in command, his subordinate, his caveman instinct was to love me -- and his hormones. I'm an attractive blond, I know I'm attractive I see no reason to pretend I don't. He had seen me naked more than once. Sometimes it just couldn't be helped.

He knew I knew he loved me. He also knew it wasn't a romantic love; we flirted because it was fun. It was a game, it would never be serious. We knew that.

It hurt to lose Jack, it hurt even more to realize I could lose Daniel just as easily. I wanted to pull away but he wouldn't let me. I went to his house one night. I wanted to say good-bye. Love shouldn't hurt this much. I'm not sure what happened, all I can remember was looking out the window and praying for dawn. I hate the night now. The night has its own brand of clarity, different from the day's. Warped somehow, or at least if you consider day clarity normal. Night time makes me see things, wish things, want things. Things I have no right wanting.

In the morning he asked me to move in with him. Daytime said that it was OK, that he was a friend, that I could keep myself from loving him. Daytime said that maybe, just maybe, he could help get rid of the silence that's been growing in me. So I did.

I could hear him that night. Knocking then banging on my door, trying everyway he could to get me to come out. I didn't want to come out, I wanted to go further in. If there had been a room inside that room I would have gone there and deeper and deeper until I was so far away I wouldn't have been able to hear his banging. Daytime said forget it. Daytime said deny it. So I did.

I don't know why I followed him to bed; I just knew that I couldn't let him out of my sight. Nighttime said that he could disappear at any moment. Nighttime said stay close to him. So I did. Daytime said that it was OK, that he was a friend, that I could keep myself from loving him. Daytime said that maybe, just maybe, he could stop the nightmares. Daytime lied.

The nightmares continued. One was almost a memory, the last time I had gone through the Stargate. First the ground would start shaking, the rocks would start sliding, then that sickening thud of a body being covered, buried, entombed by those same rocks. Only it's not Jack that's trapped, its Daniel, and the others aren't with me, I'm alone. In the dream we don't get Jack out and watch him bleed to death, in the dream I can't even get to him. I dig and I dig and I dig and I dig and I can't get to him. And I wake up and before I moved in with Daniel I would wake up to ripped sheets and . . . but now I wake up and he's there and I don't know what hurts more. The dream or him being there, being in the same bed and not know the cause of my pain. I won't tell, I'll never tell.

The other one is worse. I'm in a small small place, it's dark and cold and silent and dead. I can hear Daniel near me, outside this place and I know he can help me, but he doesn't. And in my dream I know it's because he doesn't love me, because I don't deserve him. Before I moved in with Daniel I wouldn't wake up, I would stay trapped there all night, but now I wake up and the night whispers to me. Whispers that it's all true, that he doesn't love me, that I don't deserve him. All I can do is wait for the day and its own terrible whispers.

That's the dream that finally got me. When I finally managed to wake myself up and he wasn't there. Not his fault, I was the one who fell asleep on the couch . . . still it hurt, and made the Nighttime whispers seem true.

I need help, but I can't get the words to come. And everyday more and more words disappear. I force them out for Daniel, so that he won't worry, but I know he does anyway. There's only one word that comes out easily now.

Daniel.

Daniel help me, please.


End file.
